Monday, May 28, 2012

“Attention, attention.
The fire alarm was inadvertently sounded, please return to your
offices.” This is what I heard at 2:45pm
on an otherwise quiet Wednesday afternoon at work, when the alarm did in fact
go off. Okay, fair enough. Someone tripped it in error. Back to prepping for my 3pm call.

Buzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.
“The emergency on the 24th floor has been contained.” Buzzzzzzzzzzz. “We repeat, the crisis has been contained.”

OK, I know my thought process is not always rational, but
my internal alarm began to sound in unison with the unremitting buzz of the
building’s alert system.

I calmly walked out of my office to find all of my
colleagues going about business as usual.
It was as if they didn’t hear the piercing shrill of the still sounding
fire alarm. Apparently they were
satisfied with the contained crisis pronouncement and disinclined to even
question the nature of the emergency.

I, on the other hand, was than delighted to know there
was a crisis requiring suppression in the first place. And the fact that the alarm continued to
sound did not bolster confidence that emergency was in fact over.

“Hey guys, do you hear the alarm?”

"Yeah. False alarm."

“Hmmm. Ok. Yeah, but why does it continue to sound?” As calmly as I could muster, “And what do you
think the, uh, crisis, was on the 24th floor?”

“No clue.” And
back to calls, proposals, meetings they went.

My inside voice was screaming “What the fuck is wrong
with you people??? Haven’t you see ‘The
Towering Inferno?’ There is a crisis on the 24th floor, the
alarm is sounding and you act like you are exempt from becoming tomorrow
morning’s CNN Headline News.”

My outside persona simply walked to the employee entrance
to verify no-one had locked it from the outside, rendering us helpless victims
of this horrific terror plot. The door
swung wide open. Phew.

I strode coolly back to my office to ensure the phones
were working. Nope. Lights blinking like a circuit had been
broken. Not good. We WERE hostages. Oh my G-d we need to get out. NOW.

We are on the tenth floor of this midtown structure
surrounded by parking decks, businesses and sidewalks. All made of cement. You see where I’m going? It was looking like we might need to crash one
of the building’s quadruple reinforced industrial grade glass panes. But then what? Where would we go? It was a modern day tower of terror, 40 years
after the original hit the big screen. I
was sure. All we were missing was Paul
Newman and Steve McQueen. I did not want to die here.

Then a funny thing happened. The alarm stopped. The phones went back on. People were using the elevators. A sure sign we were ok. Everyone
knows to use the stairs in time of danger. We made
it!

Now 2:59pm. Still
time to make my call. What felt like
hours actually transpired in a matter of minutes. Hopefully, that’s all this harrowing
experience shaved off my life.

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